2018- Apple becomes the first company to reach $1 trillion in value

August 2

You’d be hard-pressed to find a household that hasn’t heard of Apple Inc. From the iPod to the iPhone, AirPods, MacBooks and iPads, this international corporation has become a leading name in quality computer software and devices. So it may be no surprise to learn that on this day in 2018, Apple became the first $1 trillion company after 42 years in business. 

Fun Facts:

  • Apple was started in 1976 by cofounders Ronald Wayne and Steve Wozniak. Their first machine was a circuit board that was named Apple I.  
  • Since the first iPhone, there have been over 1.2 billion devices sold over 18 iterations. The iPhone makes up more than 60% of Apple’s annual sales. 
  • Apple shares started at just $.051 in 1989. By the time the company reached the $1 trillion milestone, Apple’s 4,829,926,000 shares were at $207.05. 
  • That day had the opposite effect for Facebook, which experienced the worst day for a single company in US stock market history. It lost more than $120 billion the week before as its shares experienced a 20% drop. 
  • The first company to reach $1 billion was US Steel in 1901. 
  • Amazon, Google and Microsoft were all trying to reach the $1 trillion mark. 
  • Almost exactly two years later, Apple became a $2 trillion company in August 2020. 
  • Apple also beat out Microsoft, Amazon and Google again when it reached the $3 trillion mark in January 2022. At the time, Microsoft was at $2.6 trillion, Amazon at $1.75 trillion and Google at $2 trillion. 
  • If you had invested $10,000 in Apple back in December 1980, you would now have over $6 million.